New York Times Service
April 25, 2021
LOS ANGELES A surreal 93rd Academy Awards, a stage show broadcast on television about films mostly distributed on the internet, got underway Sunday with Regina King, a former Oscar winner and the director of “One Night in Miami,” strutting into a supper-club set.
“It has been quite a year, and we are still smack dab in the middle of it,” she said solemnly, referencing the pandemic and the guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial. “Our love of movies helped to get us through.”
With very little additional preamble signaling a low-key, stripped-down-to-the-essentials ceremony, the snoozy opposite of the typical pomp and circumstance Oscar statuettes began to get handed out. Emerald Fennell, a first-time nominee, won best original screenplay for “Promising Young Woman,” a startling revenge drama. The last woman to win solo in the category had been Diablo Cody (“Juno”) in 2007.
Last modified on Sun 25 Apr 2021 22.13 EDT
Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson became the first black women to win for best hair and make-up at the Oscars, for their work on Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
“I stand here, as Jamika and I break this glass ceiling, with so much excitement for the future,” said Neal in accepting the award, along with their fellow stylist Sergio Lopez-Rivera.
Neal, the department head, and Wilson, Viola Davis’s personal hair stylist, won for their work on the film about one of the few openly lesbian, black performers in America in the 1920s.
Oscars: Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson Make History With Makeup and Hairstyling Win
Chris Pizzello-Pool/Getty Images
For their work on Ma Rainey s Black Bottom, Neal and Wilson are the first Black winners of the category.
Hairstylists Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson became the first Black winners of the Oscar in makeup and hairstyling for their work on
Ma Rainey s Black Bottom, the Netflix drama based on August Wilson s play of the same name that follows the titular blues singer (Viola Davis) during a recording session in 1920s Chicago. Thank you to our ancestors who put the work in, who were denied, and never gave up, said Neal, who accepted the award onstage with Wilson and fellow winner (for makeup) Sergio Lopez-Rivera. I stand here as Jamika and I break this glass ceiling with so much excitement for the future because I can picture Black trans women standing up here, and Asian sisters, our Latina sisters and Indigenous women. I know one day it won t be unusual or groundbrea
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom made Oscars history on Sunday night and Netflix was in the mood to celebrate. The film took home the award for Best Hair and Makeup with Mia Neal, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, and Jamie Wilson playing a huge role on the team. This is the first time a Black person won the award for this kind of work. Netflix expects to bring home some more hardware tonight with Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman also nominated. One cannot stress enough how great the costume work in the period piece was on-screen. You immediately believe Davis as the star presence of Ma and Boseman’s energy as Levee. It might be sad to consider as the movie has to contend with such tragedy surrounding it. But, what a win for the creative team with more to come late this evening.